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METHODS OF EXPRESSION ELEGANCE
METHODS OF EXPRESSION ELEGANCE ELEGANCE. METHODS OF EXPRESSION —ELEGANCE. The flowers of rhetoric are only acceptable when backed by the evergreens of truth and sense. —MACAULAT. Rhythm in prose should be cultivated not only for the sake of embellishment, but also for the sake of perspicuity. -BITLWER. Words have a separate effect on the mind abstracted from their signification and from their imitative power: they are more or kss agreeable to the ear, by the fulness, sweetness, faintness, or roughness of their tones. —Kuiss. E LEGANCE is in discourse what refinement is in manners, or carriage and dress in the figure of a woman of fashion. It is opposed to the vulgar and the trivial, the clumsy and the awkward. It is that quality which gives pleasure, as distinguished from that which gives instruction or impressiveness or force. Though less important than either perspicuity or energy, it is not to be disregarded. Minds are influenced by what is agreeable, as well as by what is reasonable; and in proportion as those addressed have richness and delicacy of feeling, matter and manner must combine to make the product beautiful. Elegance of expression implies refinement in the choice and arrangement of words. It depends upon: 1. Euphony, the use of pleasant-sounding words — words, generally speaking, in which there is either a preponderance of vowels and liquids or a due intermixture of vowels and consonants; hence words that are easily pronounced. Compare lowlily, inexplicableness, soothedst, stretched, barefacedness — with merrily, demeanor, celerity, bridal, alternative, degree, repent, wonderful, impetuosity. The following are examples of euphonic beauty: And neither the angels in heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee. —Poe. Airs, vernal airs, Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune The trembling leaves, while universal Pan. Knit with the graces and the hours in dance, Led on the eternal spring. —Milton. The voice within us is more distinctly audible in the stillness of the place; and the gentler affections of our nature spring up more freshly in its tranquility and sunshine—nurtured by the healthy principle which we inhale with the pure air, and invigorated by the genial influences which descend into the heart from the quiet of the sylvan solitude around, and the soft serenity of the sky above. — Longfellow. 2. Rhythm, the regular recurrence of accents and pauses at such intervals as shall produce an agreeable rise and fall of tone. It is a principle of proportion introduced into language, according to which words are so chosen and arranged as not only to express the meaning, but also to appeal to the musical sensibility. The 'rests, ' in particular, should be so distributed as neither to exhaust the breath by their distance from each other, nor to require constant cessations of voice by their frequency. What is easy to the organs of speech will, as a rule, be delightful to the ear. It is desirable, moreover, that the sound should grow to the last, the longest members and the most sonorous terms being, in general, retained for the close. Herein the requirements of energy and melody agree. Observe, in the following passages, how the sense is reinforced by the rhythmical flow. In parts, as will be indicated, the movement becomes metrical: Or ever the silver cord be loosed—or the golden bowl be broken— or the pitcher broken at the fountain— or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was — and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. —Bible. The boat reappeared, but brother and sister had gone down in an embrace never to be parted ; living through again, in one supreme moment, the days when they had cldeped their little hands in love: and rOamed the ddisied fielde together. —Georye Eliot. 3. Harmony, from the Greek, signifying to fit together; the just adaptation of one thing to another. Thus defined, it comprehends the general appropriateness of diction to the subject and end of discourse; the similar construction of corresponding parts, as in balanced and antithetical sentences; the right relation of parts to each other and to the whole. Low comedy must not take the place of sober discussion; nor pompous assertion, of simple statement. A letter should not be written in the stately manner of an oration. The grave, the gay, the solemn, the merry, the sublime, the pleasant, — should each be brought forth in its own specific features and coloring. Where, also, members are coordinate and have a common dependence; where either resemblance or opposition is intended to be expressed, there should be a resemblance in construction, in language, or in both. The skilful handling of every part, again, so that there ' may be neither excess nor deficiency of treatment, is essential to success; but the management of the theme as a whole—the steady working out of the main idea— is even a more requisite excellence, while it is a more costly one. Finally, it is occasionally possible—in prose less often than in poetry—to assist the meaning and to heighten the pleasure by making the sound an echo to the sense. Observe how Milton imitates the grating noise of the opening of hell-gates: On a sudden, open fly With impetuous recoil and jarring sound, The infernal doors; and on their hinges grate Harsh thunder. Contrast with this the opening of heaven's doors: Heaven opened wide Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound, On golden hinges turning. Melancholy and gloomy subjects naturally express themselves in long words and slow measures: In those deep solitudes and awful cells, Where heavenly pensive contemplation dwells. —Pope. A combination difficult to pronounce is suited to the description of labored movement, while an opposite arrangement corresponds to rapidity of motion. Thus Homer and his English translators suggest, by a succession of aspirates, the labor of Sisyphus: With many a weary step, and many a groan, Up the high hill he heaves a huge round stone. Then the descent: The huge round stone, resulting with a bound, Thunders impetuous down, and smokes along the ground. Heaviness and stupidity are similarly indicated: Just writes to make his barrenness appear, And strains from hard-bound brains six lines a year. —Pope. The uproar of battle is thus described: Arms on armor clashing bray'd Horrible discord, and the madding wheels Of brazen chariots rag'd; dire was the noise Of conflict; overhead the dismal his Of fiery darts in flaming volleys flew. -11ilton. Poe's Song of the Bellis full of onomatopoetic words, all illustrative of harmony. One almost sees and hears the Sledges with the bells — Silver belis What a world of merriment their melody foretells! How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, In the icy ear of night And then The mellow wedding bells, Golden bells ! Tennyson thus happily suggests the varying sounds of a flowing brook: I chatter over stony ways In little sharps and trebles; I bubble into eddying bays, I babble at the pebbles. I chatter, chatter, as I go To join the brimming river; For men may come and men may go, But I go on forever. How exquisitely does the same poet, in Lotos-Eaters, represent the dreamy haze of the enchanted land, and the sleepiness, the glutted weariness, of those who feed upon the lotos. Every stanza is a symbol of satiety. Variety. In the works of nature, as in flowers and landscapes, and in the works of art which are intended to please, this is the prevailing characteristic. Perpetual sameness leads to monotony, and monotony is painful. To have only one tune or measure is little better than to have none. Subject to the more important considerations of meaning and force, the diction should be varied; there should be a due alternation of phrases with clauses; of long members and sentences with short ones; of the natural order with the inverted; of emphatic with unemphatic words; of abrupt with swelling terminations. Imagery. Figures of speech nearly all tend to embellishment, as well as to illustration or emphasis. This effect is manifested chiefly, however, by couvicaxiam. , allusion, and metaphor. But sentiment and thought constitute the real and lasting merit of a production. Figurative language, in order to be beautiful, must rise from the subject, of its own accord, and must not be used too frequently. Nothing is more surfeiting than redundant ornaments of any kind. 6. Quotation. Discourse can be made clearer, stronger, and more attractive, by the proper use of anecdotes and sayings, of historical and literary allusions, and of extracts from reputable authors. The following are examples: Devoured by worms, like Herod, was the town, Because, like Herod, it had ruthlessly Slaughtered the Innocents. '—Longfellow. The main secret of Macaulay's success lay in this, that to extraordinary fluency and facility he united patient, minute, and persistent diligence. He well knew, as Chaucer knew before him, that, — There is na workeman That can bottle worken wel and hastilie. This must be done at leisure parfaitlie. If his method of composition ever comes into fashion, books probably will be better, and undoubtedly will be shorter. —Trevelyan. Some of the offences against elegance are: The needless use of words that are hard to pronounce; such, for example, as contain a cumulation of consonants, or recurrence of the same sound, or a succession of short unaccented syllables. The commencing of successive words with the same letter or syllable. The rules of emphasis come in interruption of your supposed general law of position. —Dean Alford. 3. The careless repetition of words at short intervals; an offence from which the best writers are not altogether Of a tract of country troubled with inHects because the people had killed the birds. free, and which those who write hastily can seldom avoid: A large supply of mules was obtained to supply the great destruction of those useful animals. —Sir Archibald Alison. Every morning setting a worthy example to his men by setting fire, with his own monster hands, to the house where he had slept last night. —Dickens. Pronouns and synonyms may be employed to vary the language. Where any given word, however, is best adapted to convey the meaning, it should be used. The variation should not seem forced, as it does in the following example: He was just one of those men that the country can't afford to lose, and whom it is so very hard to replace. —Anthony Trollope. The splitting of particles, as the separation of a preposition from the noun which it governs: I have often spoken to you upon matters kindred to, or at any rate not distantly connected teeth, my subject for Easter. —Helps. • We may here call attention to the inelegance, and the solecism as well, of inserting an adverb between the components of an infinitive: • • He's not the man to tamely acquiesce. —Browning. • To fairly understand this, consider the minor poetry of our own times. —E. C. . , Stedman. The purposeless change of phraseology or construction where the parts are coordinate, contrasted, or responsive. This conflicts with symmetry, causes an unpleasant jar, and thus diverts attention. We could see the lake over the woods, two or three miles ahead, and that the river made an abrupt turn southward. —Thoreau. The laughers will be for those who have most wit; the serious part of mankind, for those who have most reason on their side. —Bolingbroke. There may remain a suspicion that we over-rate the greatness of his genius, in the same manner as bodies appear gigantic on account of their being disproportioned and inis-shapen. i—Hunte on Shakespeare. The inordinate length of a member, or the tiresome distribution of pauses. Compare: But now we must admit the shortcomings, the fallacies, the defects as no less essential elements in forming a sound judgment as to whether the seer and artist were so united as to justify the claim first put in by himself and afterward maintained by his sect to a place beside the few great poets who exalt men's minds, and give a right direction and safe outlet to their passions through the imagination, while insensibly helping them toward balance of character and serenity of judgment by stimulating their sense of proportion, form, and the nice adjustment of means to ends. —Lowell. Our life would be but a poor affair without it (love), a miserable succession of present instants, with no landscape sleeping in the past, no perspective enshadowed in the future; with light to cut our corn, and fell our timber, and steer our ship, but not to play upon the waving fields, and paint the forest stems, and glance upon the sea; with an intelligible task before us, and worthy neighbors near us, but no solemn expressiveness in the one, no feature of inspiring heroism in the other; with a kindliness at heart, that would not stand still and see a creature die, but with no eye to see further than the suffering flesh, or ear to catch more than the uttered words; so that the plaint of deepest pathos is reduced to prose, dumb sorrows are uninterrupted, and the light hand of a graceful love is but a dull prehensile limb. —Nartineau. A series of equally emphatic or unemphatic monosyllables, rendering the enunciation heavy: In the one narrative, the facts are preeminent; but that they may be facts, they must be the entire, the living facts, clothed as far as possible with the emotion of the hour. —Dr. Bascom. Better: There may remain a suspicion that we over-rate the greatness of his genius, in the same manner as we over-rate the noignitude of bodies on account of, etc. Or: There may remain a suspicion that the greatness of his genius is over-rated, in the same manner as bodies appear, etc. The bad effect does not arise, however, if the accents be properly distributed: Bless the Lord of hosts, for he is good to us. Closing with a relatively insignificant or unemphatic word: Edward obtained a dispensation from his oath, which the barons had compelled Gaveston to take, that he would abjure forever the realm. —Thone. • Both harmony and strength require: • Edward obtained a dispensation from his oath, which the barons had compelled Gaveston to take, that he would abjure the realm forever. • It has often, after the analogy of the Latin, been laid down as a law that an English sentence should never end with a preposition; but this arrangement accords with the genius of the language, and also has the authority of the best authors. For example, to transpose the prepositions in the following would be to render the expression more formal indeed, but much less vigorous: • • He has no family to return to. —Erskine. • • Such as few persons have a just idea of. —Bright. • • Houses are built to live in, and not to look on. —Bacon. • Hath God a name to curse by? Hath God a name to blaspheme by? and hath God no name to pray by?—Donne. Knowledge must be worked for, studied for, and more than all, it must be prayed for. —Dr. Arnold. • Such a construction sounds better than it looks; for the rhythmical effect of the unaccented word is the same as that of an unaccented syllable. • Mannerism, the excessive use of favorite forms; as Emerson's ''tis, ' Carlyle's 'as of, " of him' (for his), and Alison's of all others, " great as. ' From the latter's History of Europe, Mr. Breen, in Modern English, Li. Texa ture, has culled several hundred psosages in which these and other mannerisms occur. 10. Affectations and vulgarisms; want of variety; misplaced and overwrought imagery, as well as a bald or desert-like plainness of speech. It can hardly be necessary to add that many of the principles for attaining perspicuity and energy apply equally to the attainment of elegance. Primary regard should be had to the substance, and when the two qualities are at variance, the energetic should be preferred to the elegant. Universally, ' says Dr. Whately, 'a writer or speaker should endeavor to maintain the appearance of expressing himself, not, as if he wanted to say something; i. e. , not as if he had a subject set him, and was anxious to compose the best essay or declamation on it that he could; but as if he had some ideas to which he was anxious to give utterance;— not as if he wanted to compose (for instance) a sermon, and was desirous of performing that task satisfactorily, but as if there was something in his mind which he was desirous of communicating to his hearers. ' EXERCISES. Criticize and amend, pointing out the violations (if any) of perspicuity and energy, as well as those of elegance : Tediousness is the most fatal of all faults. —Dr. Johnson. The effect of the concluding verb, placed where it is, is most striking. —Dr. Whately. It is the steady, easy hand with which its grammar is managed which carries perspicuity through a sentence. —Dr. Bascom. Surprise and ideas are the important words in the first; surprise and things in the second definition. —Ibid. 5. The first cannot be exposed by argument, being already opposed to it. They can only be met by pointing out the ridiculous figure they make when viewed in the light of reason. —Ibid. The matter employed in amplification is never. nor in any degree, to be treated as independent. —A. D. Hepburn. That is the best disposition which (provided the virtue of adaptation is not neglected) exhibits the theme from different points of view, and contains those main thoughts the development of which affords the greatest variety of new and important truths. —Ibid. God has put something noble and good into every heart which his hand has created. —Hark Twain. Goethe says that Shakespeare's characters are like watches with dial-plates of transparent crystal—they show you the hour like others, and the inward mechanism also is visible. —Carlyte. I can feel very little ambition to follow you through your ordinary routine of pettifogging objections and barefaced assertions, the only difficulty of making which is to throw aside all regard to truth and decency, and the only difficulty in answering them is to overcome one's contempt for the writer. —Fielding. Now, too, there was his temporary alliance with Kossuth, the arrival of whom in England, and the extraordinary eloquence and subtlety of his speeches in English, were a public topic for many months. —David Masson. Every strong and every weak point of those who might probably be his rivals were laid down on his charts. -0. W. Holmes. Ministers had information of their designs from the information of Edwards. —Alison. The secret spring of all his actions was a deep and manly feeling of piety which pervaded all his actions. —Ibid. It would seem as if in the very disposition of the seats. it had been intended to point to the intended union of the Orders. —Ibid. He was left with her injunctions, and the spirit of the oracle. though the divinity was no longer visible, pervaded his life and inind. —Disraeli. That he should be in earliest it is hard to conceive: since any reasons of doubt which he might have in this case would have been reasons of doubt in the case of other men, who may give more, but cannot give more evident, signs of thought than their fellow creatures. —Bolingbroke. 18. One may have an air which proceeds front a a%t, icNKCekexcl and knowledge of the matter before him, which may naturally produce some motions of his head and body, which might become the bench better than the bar. —Guardian. The sharks, who prey upon the inadvertency of young heirs. are more pardonable than those who trespass upon the good opinion of those who treat with them upon the foot of choice and respect. —Ibid. His own notions were always good ; but he was a man of great expense. —Burnet. Joseph desired to alight, and that he might have a bed prepared for him. —Fielding. I pray you, tarry all night, lodge here, that thy heart may be merry. —Bible. This being admitted, it appears to me highly probable that they were primarily construed as such, joined either with the nominative or the objective case, as the verbs had either a transitive or intransitive meaning; and that they were followed by either single words or clauses. —Crornbie. I saw simple Sloth and Presumption lie asleep, a little out of the way, as I came, with irons upon their heels; but do you think I could awake them? I also saw Formality and Hypocrisy come tumbling over the wall, to go (as they pretended) to Zion ; but they were quickly lost, even as I myself did tell them; but they would not believe; but above all, I found it hard work to get up this hill, and as hard to come by the lions' mouths; and truly if it had not been for the good man, the Porter that stands at the gate, I do not know but that, after all, I might have gone back again; but now, I thank God, I am here, and I thank you for receiving me. —Bunyan. Category:Style